Water doesn’t prevent dehydration according to EU officials

It’s a fairly known fact that the adult human body is typically 60% made out of water. Hence comes the common sense that if you happen to become dehydrated, you have to drink water to get well. It’s an instinctual event, this is why our body developed the essential mechanism of thirst. The European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) seems to think otherwise though and has officially warranted, according to three year long study, that water does not prevent dehydration, and as such bottled water manufactures should not advertise this statement on labels or during campaigns.

I kid you not, this is for real and the European scientists who have made these findings public have already had their share of scrutiny – more like ridicule. Nevertheless, the new law goes into effect next month into the UK, and as such any person found responsible of advertising that water prevents dehydration will risk two years of prison.

“This is extremely dangerous because what they’re going to do is someone’s going to read a portion of this study and say, well, I don’t need water. Then they’re going to stop drinking water,” said Priority Health’s Dr. Randy Shuck.

This becomes extremely confusing when you consider that the NHS health guidelines state clearly that drinking water helps avoid dehydration, and that people should drink at least 1.2 liters per day (half a gallon). Regarding the current event, the EFSA acknowledges that “water contributes to the maintenance of normal physical and cognitive functions” and “water contributes to the maintenance of normal thermoregulation”, which can be labeled on bottles. Still, according to them water doesn’t meet the EFSA standards regarding dehydration prevention.

“This shows not only the folly with regards to the claim but the degree of intrusiveness which the commission thinks it should exercise with commercial processes,” said Roger Helmer, the Conservative MEP who spoke out against the original decision.

“We have got half a billion people in Europe, if each product we eat and drink has to be passed by the commission first then that is just extraordinary.”

23.11.2011.

Od zaceca do rodjenja ocima matematicara

From Conception to Birth: The Math and the Marvel

Evolution News & Views

Mathematician and medical image maker Alexander Tsiaras offers a stunning visualization of the process that in nine months takes an emerging human life from conception to birth. He speaks of "the marvel of this information," "the mathematical models of how these things are done are beyond human comprehension," "even though I look at this with the eyes of mathematician I look at this and marvel. How do these instruction sets not make mistakes as they build what is us?"

Artificial Life: Ready or Not Here It Comes

A number of scientists are trying to create life in the lab, specifically artificial cells. They hope these synthetic cells will provide useful biomedical and biotechnology applications. They also hope the manufacture of these cells will shed light on the origin of life question. Many scientists conclude that once life is made in the lab, it will demonstrate two things: (1) that there is nothing special about life in general and; (2) that it is much more realistic to believe chemical evolution could generate Earth’s first life-forms. New work by a Japanese research team brings scientists closer to making artificial life in the laboratory. But careful analysis of this work reveals the opposite conclusion—life cannot originate without an intelligent agent.

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“Ready or not, here I come” is the familiar cry of children playing hide-and-seek. It also describes the reality of synthetic biology, the discipline focused on creating artificial life in the lab.

Given the complexity of even the simplest cell, many people struggle to believe scientists could ever generate life. Yet researchers are close to generating artificial cells in the laboratory—and with this feat come many questions and concerns. Ready or not, here it comes.

Many researchers believe creating protocells will shed light on the origin-of-life question by providing evidence for an evolutionary explanation for life’s origin. New work by researchers from Japan brings synthetic biologists one step closer to the laboratory assembly of protocells with life-like properties.1 Careful examination of this latest attempt to create artificial cells indicates, ironically, that apart from the work of intelligent agents, life cannot come into being.

Synthetic Biology and the Bottom-Up Approach to Artificial Cells
Some synthetic biologists attempt to create artificial cells with the so-called bottom-up approach. These scientists begin with simple molecules, using them as building blocks, and combine them into increasingly complex arrangements until a supramolecular complex (called a protocell) results—a system that bears many of life’s properties and characteristics.

Progress to Date
As I detail in my book Creating Life in the Lab, researchers have made remarkable progress toward producing protocells with life-like properties. For example, researchers have generated from fatty acids, vesicles (hollow spherical structures) that can grow and divide. Growth is achieved by adding more fatty acids to the vesicles once they have formed initially. These added materials incorporate into the vesicle walls and cause the spherical structures to increase in size. At some point the vesicles’ increased size leads to instability, leading to fissure and division into daughter vesicles.

Figure 1. Scheme of a liposome formed by phospholipids in an aqueous solution. Source: SuperManu, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Liposome_scheme-en.svg.

Researchers have also successfully encapsulated materials within the vesicles’ interiors, including DNA and RNA. By incorporating enzymes or other catalysts into the vesicle interiors, along with these information-rich molecules, researchers have been able to direct RNA and DNA synthesis, simulating the molecular process that forms the basis for replication of genetic information.

Taking the Next Step
Up until this point, researchers have failed to link the growth and replication of vesicles to the replication of encapsulated DNA or RNA. But now, for the first time, a team of Japanese researchers has accomplished this feat. These investigators developed artificial vesicle-forming materials as analogs to fatty acids. One difference is that fatty acids are negatively charged while the vesicle-forming materials employed by the Japanese team possess a positive charge. This property in the artificial materials turns out to be the key.

The scientists encapsulated within the vesicles pieces of DNA and the enzymes needed for the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)—a process that can replicate DNA and amplify the number of copies. The researchers showed that when the entrapped DNA was replicated via the PCR, it dramatically promoted the growth and division of the vesicles. It appears DNA and vesicle replication can couple because of the interaction between the negatively charged DNA and the positively charged vesicle components. This interaction promotes incorporation of newly generated vesicle components into the walls of these spherical structures and initiates the fissuring of the growing vesicles.

This advance represents a significant step toward the generation of protocells with the properties of life. But does it make the evolutionary explanation for the origin of life more reasonable?

Synthetic Biology, Chemical Evolution, and Intelligent Design
Ironically, studies like the latest one conducted by the Japanese researchers support the case for intelligent design, rather than the case for chemical evolution.

The coupling of vesicle growth and replication with DNA replication and amplification required a team of highly trained chemists with detailed knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biochemistry. These researchers employed a sophisticated strategy, carefully designed protocols, and precise laboratory manipulations to generate the replicating vesicles.

Specifically, the investigators had to:

Carefully design, then synthesize the vesicle-forming compound

Carefully add other vesicle-forming components to optimize the vesicle properties so they possess a large enough internal volume and stability in high ionic-strength environments and high temperature conditions needed for the PCR process to operate

Carefully manipulate the system according to tightly controlled laboratory protocols to carry out the encapsulation and amplification processes and to provide additional vesicle-forming materials to drive vesicle growth

In other words, intelligent agents were required to make these experiments successful.

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A Cornucopia of Evidence for Intelligent Design: DNA Packaging of the T4 Virus

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love the food, fellowship, and the chance to reflect on the abundance of blessings in my life. I’m filled with a spirit of gratitude.

I experienced this same feeling of thankfulness after thinking about recent scientific research from the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. These scientists have gained new insight into the structure and function of the DNA packaging machine of the T4 virus.1 Their discoveries have uncovered a cornucopia of new evidence for intelligent design.

The Infection Process

Viruses are infectious agents that consist of a protein capsule that houses genetic material (either DNA or RNA). Multiple copies of identical protein subunits interact to form the capsid. Some viruses also possess a protein tail that extends from the base of the viral capsid, which also consists of several protein subunits.

Viruses infect cells by binding to the surface of a target cell and injecting their own genetic material into the cell. When present, the viral tail binds the virus to the target cell’s surface and injects the viral genetic material into the host cell.

Once inside the cell, the viral genetic material uses the host cell’s enzymatic machinery to make copies of itself and its proteins, which then assemble to form multiple copies of the virus. With time, the newly produced virus particles cause the host cell to rupture, releasing the nascent viruses to repeat the infectious cycle.

The T4 virus infects the bacterium, E. coli. The embedded video clip depicts the binding of the T4 virus to the surface of E. coli followed by the injection of its genetic material (DNA) into the host cell.

The T4 Virus’ DNA Packaging Motor

Researchers have taken long-term interest in the T4 virus, particularly because of the way the DNA double helix is packed extremely tightly within the viral head. As the DNA presses against the capsid walls, it generates high pressure (about ten times that of a bottle of champagne). This high pressure serves a functional purpose by driving the viral DNA into the host cell during the injection process.

The tight packing is achieved by a molecular machine called the DNA packaging motor. This motor binds to the opening of the empty capsid and translocates DNA into the capsid. The breakdown of ATP (a high-energy compound that liberates energy when key bonds within its structure are broken) powers this operation. When DNA is completely translocated, the packaging motor dissociates from the capsid.

As the video below shows, DNA is driven into the capsid when parts of the motor alternate between two distinct structural states. This motion, powered by ATP breakdown, generates an electrostatic force that pushes the highly negatively charged DNA molecule into the capsid.

Virologists had assumed the DNA packaging motor would bind only to empty capsids. The latest work, however, indicates that the motor will bind to full capsids as well, jamming even more DNA into the viral head.

This behavior is advantageous for the virus. Occasionally, the DNA packaging motor will prematurely debind from the capsid before DNA translocation has been fully achieved. When this happens, the resulting viral particle will lack a complete genome. Despite the premature disassociation, the indiscriminate binding of the DNA packing motor still allows the opportunity for a viral particle to be fully assembled. When the DNA packaging motor binds to a partially filled virus it will add more DNA into the viral head until the full complement of DNA is translocated into the capsid. The promiscuous behavior of the DNA packaging motor can be viewed as an elegant design feature, ensuring the maximum number of viruses are assembled.

This behavior also leads to viral particles with over-filled capsids, which generates even higher than normal pressures within the capsid and, thus, improves the efficiency of DNA injection into the host cell.

The Biomedical Uses of T4 DNA Packaging Motor

The Catholic University of America scientists realize that the DNA packaging motor’s promiscuous behavior could be exploited for biomedical applications, specifically gene delivery to targeted cells in the human body. They propose that capsid proteins could be altered to bind with a specified target cell and that the DNA packaging motor could be used to load up the modified capsid with pieces of DNA that contain genes useful for a variety of therapeutic purposes.

The T4 DNA Packaging Motor and the Case for Design

As I discussed last week, and spell out in detail in The Cell’s Design, the stark resemblance between man-made machines and molecular motors invigorate Paley’s Watchmaker argument and help make the case that life stems from the work of a Creator.

Some criticize the “new” Watchmaker argument by asserting the analogy between biomolecular machines and human designs is purely metaphorical and does not reflect a true relationship. As such, they maintain, the similarity between biomolecular machines and human designs cannot be used to make the case for intelligent design.2

The proposal by the scientists from the Catholic University of America, however, helps to formulate a response to this challenge. The potential use of the DNA packaging motor to package modified capsids with therapeutic pieces of DNA for delivery to specific cells and tissues highlights this biomolecular complex as a true machine. In fact, that is precisely how these researchers view the DNA packaging motor, as a machine. It is also provocative that the T4 DNA packaging motor’s architecture and operation inspired the design of a potential gene delivery system. In other words, the proposed use of the T4 DNA packaging machine as a machine affirms the Watchmaker argument.

The use of viruses to provide gene therapy has additional theological implications. Instead of representing a type of natural evil, viruses could be understood as a providential part of God’s creation.

More...

'Cannibalism was found not only in the New World, as often believed, but also in Europe.

'One thing we are rarely taught at school yet is evidenced in literary and historic texts of the time is this: James I refused corpse medicine; Charles II made his own corpse medicine; and Charles I was made into corpse medicine.

New world: Depiction of cannibalism in the Brazilian Tupinambá tribe as described by Hans Staden in 1557. Whether true or not, the myth ignored the fact that Europeans consumed human flesh

The history of medicinal cannibalism, Dr Sugg argues, raised a number of important social questions.

He said: 'Medicinal cannibalism used the formidable weight of European science, publishing, trade networks and educated theory.

'Whilst corpse medicine has sometimes been presented as a medieval therapy, it was at its height during the social and scientific revolutions of early-modern Britain.

'It survived well into the 18th century, and amongst the poor it lingered stubbornly on into the time of Queen Victoria.

'Quite apart from the question of cannibalism, the sourcing of body parts now looks highly unethical to us.

'In the heyday of medicinal cannibalism bodies or bones were routinely taken from Egyptian tombs and European graveyards. Not only that, but some way into the eighteenth century one of the biggest imports from Ireland into Britain was human skulls.

'Whether or not all this was worse than the modern black xafs in human organs is difficult to say.'

This painting of Charles I's execution in 1649 shows people surging forward to mop up the former king's blood. It was thought to have healing properties

The book gives numerous vivid, often disturbing examples of the practice, ranging from the execution scaffolds of Germany and Scandinavia, through the courts and laboratories of Italy, France and Britain, to the battlefields of Holland and Ireland and on to the tribal man-eating of the Americas.

A painting showing the 1649 execution of Charles I showed people mopping up the king's blood with handkerchiefs.

Dr Sugg said: 'This was used to treat the "king's evil" - a complaint more usually cured by the touch of living monarchs.

'Over in continental Europe, where the axe fell routinely on the necks of criminals, blood was the medicine of choice for many epileptics.

'In Denmark the young Hans Christian Andersen saw parents getting their sick child to drink blood at the scaffold. So popular was this treatment that hangmen routinely had their assistants catch the blood in cups as it spurted from the necks of dying felons.

'Occasionally a patient might shortcut this system. At one early sixteenth-century execution in Germany, 'a vagrant grabbed the beheaded body "before it had fallen, and drank the blood from him..".'

The last recorded instance of this practice in Germany fell in 1865.

History: Author Dr Richard Sugg, from Durham University, delves into the dark world of medicinal cannibalism in his new book Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires

Whilst James I had refused to take human skull, his grandson Charles II liked the idea so much that he bought the recipe. Having paid perhaps £6,000 for this, he often distilled human skull himself in his private laboratory.

Dr Sugg said: 'Accordingly known before long as "the King's Drops", this fluid remedy was used against epilepsy, convulsions, diseases of the head, and often as an emergency treatment for the dying.

'It was the very first thing which Charles reached for on February 2 1685, at the start of his last illness, and was administered not only on his deathbed, but on that of Queen Mary in 1698.'

Dr Sugg's research will be featured in a forthcoming Channel 4 documentary with Tony Robinson in which they reconstruct versions of older cannibalistic medicines with the help of pigs' brains, blood and skull.

The book, called Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires, will be published on June 29 by Routledge and charts the largely forgotten history of European corpse medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians